My First Laptop: A ThinkPad

Another summer has passed me by, and I still haven’t learned how to ride a bike nor how to swim properly. Alas, I suppose I’ll get to these eventually. I have kept one of my resolutions though. I finally splurged and bought myself a ThinkPad (specifically, a T500). I decided upon the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8400 (2.26GHz 1066MHz 3MBL2) 25W

Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic (Will be used only to verify hardware functionality. Fedora will replace it thereafter.)

15.4″ WSXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight (137 DPI…sweet.)

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator x4500HD with vPro

4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)

UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)

250 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm

DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)

Integrated Bluetooth PAN

Intel WiFi Link 5300 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology

9 cell Li-Ion Battery

4 Year On Site Upgrade with 4 Year ThinkPad Protection

Thankfully, I found an excellent discount through the CPP (Contractor Purchase Program) which cut the cost from nearly $2,200 to just $1,400 (including shipping and taxes, state fees, et al.) – a savings of 40%! The 4-year protection plan was about 30% of the final cost. Well worth it, though.

As it is, this will be a life-safer, as I’ve been having a lot of intermittent hardware issues on my desktop: I get seemingly-random WiFi disconnects; DVD-burning often fails for no discernible reason, and my hard drive is on its last legs, so to speak. (In fact, just today I saw another 12 sectors go bad and need to be reallocated…its count is now at 177. The manufacturer maximum is 188!) – I’m all anxious and impatient now!

So, in the span of one month, I’ve spent almost $4,000 (tuition/registration fees, books/supplies, and ThinkPad). I think that’s quite enough for a while.

Based on my experience, this is probably because modern optical disc drives are utter shit. I have a stack of no-longer-working DVD burners that half fills the top shelf of an entire closet. Not one of them lasted a year, most only a few months. The things just crap out – usually writing doesn’t work any more, reading is often still OK. I’ve tried a bunch of different brands, they’re all as bad as each other. There’s a reason the things cost about five cents each…

Actually, I think it’s a bad DVD-R batch this time. I just tried to burn the F12-Alpha image on my mom’s Windows machine, and it also failed burning – same discs. I need to go buy some other ones from the local Office Depot tomorrow, it seems…